Update: Man in hospital after fall

A worker was seriously injured this evening when he fell in a 40-foot hole at the construction site of the county sewage treatment plant near Midland Avenue.

The man was climbing a ladder out of the hole, where he had been working at about 7 p.m., when he lost his balance and fell about 20 feet onto some pipes at the bottom, according to Deputy Chief Jeff Daly of the Syracuse Fire Department. The worker called 911 and stayed on the line with the emergency center. Rescue workers were on the scene in about three minutes, Daly said.

Rescue crew members loaded the man, whose identity was not available, into a rescue basket and hoisted him out of the hole with ropes suspended from a fire truck's cherry picker. The truck was parked on West Castle Street just west of Midland Avenue, next to the muddy construction site. Firefighters breached a chain-link fence to gain access.

As the rescue crew worked in a persistent rain, the victim was semi-conscious and in a lot of pain, Daly said. The man, who is in his early 40s, had an apparent fractured leg, back pain and possible head and internal injuries.

The worker was treated at the scene by paramedics and was transported by ambulance to a hospital. His condition was not immediately available.

There were three workers on the scene, but only one man was in the hole, Daly said. The rescue did not present any unusual difficulty for firefighters, he said.